God Knows

If you have a copy of the Bible, let me invite you to turn to Psalm 139. Over the next few weeks our time in the Word and our worship gatherings is going to be led out by various pastors from our church. I’ll be leading us today. In the upcoming weeks we’ll be led by J.D. Payne, our Pastor for Church Multiplication, Jonathan, our Global Disciple-Making Pastor, and Tate Cockrell, our Pastor of Member Care. So thankful for these brothers, the role they play in our faith family, their leadership. I know that you’re going to be challenged and encouraged by their teaching.

Today we’re going back to the Psalms one more time before we move past them completely in our daily Bible reading. If you’re following along with our Bible reading plan, then you likely read this particular chapter last Sunday. I’ve entitled the message for today “God Knows.”

The Primary Theme of Psalm 139:1–6

Because in the grand scheme of all that there is to be known, you and I really know very little. I don’t say that to make us feel ignorant. I say it to bring contrast to and shine a spotlight on where we are headed today with our time in the Word. Because I believe that one of the most under-celebrated attributes of our God—the God of the Bible—is the fact that He is an all-knowing God. And in our limited knowledge, sometimes it can be hard to get our arms and minds wrapped around this idea that God knows everything.

Psalm 139 is a glorious celebration of the multifaceted splendor of God and all of the practical implications that it bears for the believer. There’s so much packed into these 24 verses here. David speaks of the omnipresence of God—God being fully present in all places at all times. He declares the omnipotence of God—the fact that God is all-powerful. He affirms and calls on the holiness of God. But I want to suggest to you that the primary theme that is threaded throughout this psalm is the omniscience, or the “all-knowingness,” of God.

I want us to read verses one through six—that’s actually going to be our focal passage here in just a moment—but I also want to connect to it verses 17 and 18, and verses 23 and 24. And let’s see this thread that David weaves through this psalm. So you follow along beginning in verse one:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Then verse 17:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

Then verse 23:

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

As you can tell just from these selected verses, this is not a generic psalm, right? It doesn’t take long to notice how intensely personal it is between David and God. Now, so that we’re all on the same page together, I think it’s probably helpful for us to start with a good working definition of the term “omniscience.” Omniscience is God’s perfect knowledge of all things. Now, the word is made up of two parts: omni, meaning all; science, referring to knowledge. So to say that God is omniscient means that He has all knowledge, or He knows all.

And Scripture affirms this definition. In the Old Testament, Job 37:16 describes God as one who is “perfect in knowledge.” And then in the New Testament, John in 1 John 3:20 says that God “knows everything.” And so when we say that God is omniscient, we mean that He literally knows everything. And everything that He knows, He knows perfectly, and everything that He knows perfectly He knows exhaustively. In other words, there’s no informational system or special set of data anywhere outside of God’s knowledge. And check this out: God depends on no one outside of Himself for any knowledge about anything.

And that’s so unlike us, is it not? All of us are dependent on someone else’s knowledge in one form or another. In fact, sometimes we stake our lives on the fact that someone else knows something. You think about it. Every time you walk into Walgreens to have a prescription filled, you bank on the fact that the person behind the counter knows what they’re doing. You trust that the pharmacist went to school and knows how much of which pill to put in your bottle. It’s true in a variety of other areas of life. We depend heavily on the knowledge that other people possess. But it’s not the case with God. So the question I want us to consider from the Word is this: Does God really know everything, and if He does, how should that affect the way I live?

Three Things to Know About the Knowledge of God …

Now, in order to tackle that question, I want us to consider three essential things that I believe we need to know about the knowledge of God. And the first of these is going to be broad. I want to do some teaching, provide a doctrinal overview on the omniscience of God. My goal is to give us a big picture, to take something that could be very complex and hopefully make it more simple and understandable. Then with the second point, we’re going to look specifically at the first six verses of Psalm 139, so that we can zoom in a little bit and understand the personal nature of God’s knowledge. And then finally, we’re going to talk about some of the practical application of this great truth. So to borrow from my friend John Butterfield, one of our pastors here, we’re going to ask the questions, “What? So What? and Now What?” on the knowledge of God. So let’s dive in.

Psalm 139:1–6 teaches us that God’s knowledge is both intuitive and immense.

The first essential thing that we need to know about God’s knowledge is that it is both intuitive and immense. It’s intuitive and immense. Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah, in chapter 40, verses 13 and 14, says this: “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” Another way to say what Isaiah is saying here is, “Where did God go to school?” Isaiah poses this question because he wants to make a point on something very fundamental, and that is that God didn’t gain His knowledge by learning. God doesn’t study. He doesn’t need to read. He doesn’t do homework. He certainly doesn’t Google, right?

The knowledge you and I have on the other hand comes through a process of learning. Take for example: if I’m going to gain knowledge on how to drive a car on a public street, then I’m going to do several things. I might first for a long time observe my parents or another adult as they drive and I’m a passenger. Then I’m maybe going to read a handbook or a textbook about driving. I might attend a driver’s Ed class. I might watch some videos. Eventually I’ll probably sit in the driver’s seat while someone that’s more knowledgeable than me sits in the passenger seat. In other words, I’m going to learn how to drive. The knowledge is obtained through process for you and me.

But for God, His knowledge is intuitive. What that means is it’s innate in who He is, and everything He knows is already there. God doesn’t have to learn; He simply knows. We’re familiar with the verse in Matthew 10, verse 30, where Jesus tells us that even the hairs on our head are already numbered by God.

Whether it’s the hairs on your head, the grains of sand on the beach, or the stars in the sky—catch this—God already simultaneously knows those amounts exactly. And for you and me, we would have to count, we would have to get out our calculator, employ some kind of a formula, but for God these facts, and all other things for that matter, are always fully present in His consciousness. Let’s unpack this a little further. The omniscience of God means all knowledge past, present and future resides in Him.

Past, present and future. God knows what is going to happen, even though it is not here yet. Think about it this way. I have a choice today about where I’m going for lunch. I’m going to be faced with the decision of whether I’m going to turn left and go to here, or whether I’m going to turn right and go there. The question is does God know the choice I’m going to make before I make it? And then what happens if I turn right, but then I change my mind and I do a U-turn and go the other way? Is God going to hit Himself upside the head and say, “I never saw that one coming—he really pulled one on me there”?

It sounds like a silly question. I find it hard to believe that the God of the universe would be oblivious to my choice before I make it. Someone who embraces Open Theism would say that I could have surprised God with my choice, that He would not have known for sure which way I was going until I made my decision. David in Psalm 139 would disagree. David takes great comfort and is reassured by the fact that no thought or desire or purpose has escaped the eye of his Heavenly Father.

I want you to listen to the comments from “A Resolution on the Foreknowledge of God” prepared by John Piper and Justin Taylor for a conference back in 2000. Listen carefully. It says this. “The openness view, or Open Theism, suggests that since God can’t foreknow the good or bad decisions of the people He creates until He creates these people, and they in turn create their decisions, then God is learning billions of new certainties every hour, and is adjusting His plans continually to deal with these new certainties.” They conclude, “This is a very serious departure from the glorious biblical vision of God, who knows infallibly all that shall come to pass.” So all that is known, all that has been known, all that will be known by God already resides in Him. His knowledge is intuitive.

But it’s also immense. That means, it’s huge. It’s comprehensive. It encompasses everything. And we know that God’s knowledge is not confined to the things on this earth. We see that in Scripture, Psalm 147:4. The psalmist says that every star among the billions of stars that inhabit the universe has been numbered by Him. Proverbs 15:3 tells us, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” Psalm 50:11, God reminds us that He knows every beast and every bird of the air. And according to Acts 15, everything He knows He has known from the very beginning. Needless to say, it would be impossible to give God a surprise card. One author said it this way, “God knows 100% of all things, and if He only knew 99.999% of all and lacked one thousandth of a percent, He wouldn’t be God.”

Next, God’s knowledge is immense because nothing can be hidden from Him. And here is where the unending knowledge of God makes us fidget just a bit, because the Bible tells us that God sees what is done in secret, and also what’s done in the light. Later in this chapter, in verse 12, David says that the day and night are alike to God. And Moses reminds us in Psalm 90:8 that our secret sins are brought to light in His presence. This is significant information, because if it hasn’t begun to register yet, what this means is that every detail of this world and every detail of your life is totally known to God. Those areas of your life that you think no one knows about but you—we all have some of those. Those are known by God. And this is why an unregenerate man, one who doesn’t know Christ, doesn’t like the idea of an omniscient God.

Let’s look a little further. God not only knows what is, but He knows what could have been. This is where it starts to make our brain hurt a little bit, because it’s one thing to know actual events, but it’s a whole different ballgame to know potential events as well. So God not only knows everything that exists and everything that has happened and everything that will happen—He also knows what could possibly happen but doesn’t actually happen. You got all that? It’s a little mind-boggling.

A case in point, Matthew 11:21, you might write that reference in the margin of your notes. Jesus in this passage is rebuking a couple of cities—the people of these cities—for their lack of repentance. And He says to them that Tyre and Sidon—which are two other cities, two cities in the Old Testament that were destroyed as a result of God’s judgment on them—He says those cities would have repented if the miracles He was doing presently would have taken place back then. Jesus says if this would have happened, then the people would have done that. He knows what could have been.

Now, let’s slow down for a moment and think about what this means. Because if God knows the potential outcomes of history, then God also knows your potential history. What if you’d been born at another time, born in another country? Have you ever thought about that? What if you had attended a different college than the one that you did? What if you had married someone else instead of your spouse? Do you ever ask those kinds of questions? Here’s the deal. God indeed knows what could have been in your life, and because of that, you can find rest and peace in what actually is in your life.

This verse shows us that God’s knowledge is both intimate and infinite.

You say, “Dennis, you don’t know the hand that I’ve been dealt. You don’t know what I’m going through.” Listen, there is great peace that is found at the intersection of God’s omniscience and God’s sovereignty, God’s knowledge and the fact that He is in complete control. There’s peace to be found there. And this leads us perfectly back into Psalm 139, so let’s go there. We’ve seen that God’s knowledge is both intuitive and immense. But let’s zoom in and understand that God’s knowledge is also both intimate and infinite.

In these first few verses of Psalm 139, David is captivated. He’s captivated by this reality that God knows him so intimately. I know not everyone is thrilled with the idea of being utterly, exhaustively, and intimately known. In fact, there’s probably at least a small part of all of us that is a bit unnerved by the fact that God might know us in such detail. But for David—he rejoices in that truth, celebrates it. So let’s take a closer look at the extent of God’s personal knowledge of David, and His knowledge of you and me, for that matter.

So notice six things David helps us see. First, he points out God knows everything about me. Verse one, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!” Now searching—when we think of the term searching—normally implies that something is missing, or that there is a lack of something. You’ve got to go looking for it. And at first glance in this verse, you might think that God had some research to do before He could really know David’s heart. But that’s not what is being said here. Instead, David is reminding us up front, here at the very beginning, that the Lord knows him and us thoroughly. He knows us as if He had examined us very carefully, or as if according to Spurgeon He had “pried into the most secret corners of our being.”

The word here literally means to pierce through. Maybe you’ve used the phrase before, “I can see right through that person. I can see right through them.” And what you mean is, you know the truth about what’s really there. It’s what David’s getting at. The Jewish people would use this word to describe digging deep into a mine or thoroughly investigating a legal case. And David actually bookends the psalm—the beginning and at the end—by humbly acknowledging the fact that God knows him intimately and there’s no getting around that. He says, “God knows everything about me.”

The second thing David says is God knows when I move. He says there at the beginning of verse two, “You know when I sit down and when I rise up.” I don’t know of a more mundane, routine activity that sitting down and rising up and sitting down and rising up. I doubt any of us know how many times we’ve sat down or stood up today. The point David wants us to see though is that God is acutely aware of even the smallest details of our lives. You see, David is not simply talking about sitting and standing here, but he uses a figure of speech called merism. And with merism polar opposites are used to be able to make a point that, “I’m including everything in between here—all of the actions, the events, the locations, and in between.”

Another way that we might use this figure of speech is if you said, “I searched high and low for that person.” It means you looked everywhere. And David chooses his words here very carefully because he wants to refer to all of life’s activities. He says, “When I’m active, when I’m passive, and everything in between—God, You know it all.” So listen, God knows when you’re awake. God knows when you sleep. He knows when you’re at work. He knows when you’re at play. And listen, He knows when you are where you’re supposed to be, and He knows when you are where you’re not supposed to be. God knows when I move.

Next, David reminds us God knows what I think. The second part of verse two says, “You discern my thoughts from afar.” And David is not really referring to space or distance here. In other words, God is not a long way off. But instead we consider it in light of verses seven through 12, which follow this first stanza, and that deals with the omnipresence of God. And so here’s what David is saying. “Long before an impulse starts to make its way to the front of my mind, long before I know what my next feeling or emotion is going to be, or where my train of thought is headed, God knows it.”

You say, “So, Dennis, you’re saying God reads my mind?” No, He doesn’t have to read, remember? He already knows your mind. At least three times in the Gospels we read, “Jesus knew their thoughts.” And when you and I say the phrase or words, “I know what you’re thinking,” what we really mean is, “I think I know what you’re thinking.” When God says, “I know what you’re thinking,” guess what? He knows what you’re thinking.

So He knows when I move. He knows what I think. And God knows where I go. He knows where I go. Verse three, David says, “You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” Search out here in verse three is a term that pictures a farmer separating the chaff from the grain. So the idea here is that God sifts through our comings and goings. Everywhere you go, every step you take, God is aware. He knows where you live. He knows where you drive your car. He knows where you work. He knows where you vacation, where you eat breakfast and where you eat lunch. He knows which movie theater you step into. He knows which parties you attend. He’s fully aware

Our family uses an app on our phones called Life360. Some of you families may use that. It’s a great little tool for knowing where your kids are, right? And so the idea here—everybody has this app on their phone—through GPS I can just kind of click on a button or just touch the screen and in an instant I know where all of my family members are. I know if they’re in another state, another part of the city, down the street, or sitting in my living room. What David’s talking about here is a divine GPS, right? God knows where we are and there’s no escaping.

In case there’s any lingering doubt about how intimately God really does know us, David helps us realize next that God knows what I say. He knows what I say. Verse four, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” God knows every single word I utter. It’s been said that every day the average articulate man speaks enough words to fill a decent-sized book. Some of you wives are thinking, “That’s a pretty small book.” And in the course of his lifetime, that same man would speak enough words to make enough books to fill a small college library. That’s a lot of words. And the truth of the matter is, you and I forget the vast majority of the words that we speak, but God knows them, every one.

And there’s two things we can’t miss right here in what David’s saying. First, God has knowledge of our words before they are ever spoken. “Before a word is on my tongue,” He knows it. And secondly, He has a comprehensive knowledge of my words. The God-glorifying words that I speak, the self-glorifying words that I speak—He knows them. The kind words, the hurtful words, the true words, the lies, the praise, the profanity—He knows them all. And He knows them before they’re spoken.

Now I think all parents have probably had this happen at one time or another. Do you remember when your children were young, small, and you would be in line at the grocery store, waiting your turn, and your child would blurt out some awkward, uncomfortable comment about the person in line ahead of you. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you or if it’s just our family, but it’s completely innocent, right? But blatantly honest. It might sound something like, “Mommy, that man has a really big tummy.” And all of a sudden Kathy is just taken back. “Here, you want some Tic-Tacs? How about some M&M’s?” You know, you go to the candy, National Enquirer, whatever you can do to kind of distract. And you’re wondering, where did that come from?

And even though you were mortified, rest assured that God was well aware that it was coming. He knows our actions. He knows our locations, our thoughts, our words. No wonder David says what he says in verse 5. He says, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” What he’s saying here is God has me surrounded. The words “hem me in” here mean to be cramped or to make limited space. It would be the same word we would use if we were talking about taking over a city. You’re going to come at it from all sides. And as much as we might want to think otherwise, there is absolutely no escape from God’s thorough, penetrating knowledge of you. He sees you and He knows you from every angle.

I think sometimes we present ourselves in such a way that others really have no idea what’s going on behind the veneer. Well, if you’ve ever done that—react a certain way or do a certain thing so that others won’t know what is really going on in our lives—part of what I think David is getting at here is that God knows. There’s no deceiving Him, all right? There’s no fooling God. He knows when we look one way on the outside but are totally different on the inside.

The Sadducees and the Pharisees of Jesus’ day—they went around fooling people with their righteous talk and their righteous prayers, their righteous fasting. But then they ran into Jesus, and because Jesus is God in the flesh, He looked at them and He said, in Matthew 23, “You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones.” Jesus was referring to the Jewish law, which said that anyone who touched a grave would be defiled. And to avoid defilement, they would whitewash tombs to mark them in such a way that travelers would steer clear of them.

But listen. Whitewashing a tomb didn’t change the reality that it contained the bones of a dead body. And there are perhaps some that are painted up lovely on the outside, but if we were to open up the door of your heart, we would see bones, dead bones. We would see hypocrisy and deceit and immorality. And know this today—you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool God none of the time. God has you surrounded.

And at the end of the day, there are two ways to look at this truth. For the person who’s walking with Christ in repentance and faith, the omniscience of God is one of the most reassuring and comforting realities you can have in this life. God knows it all. But for the person who’s not a believer in Christ, the person who’s content to live in their sin, the omniscience of God is one of the most unsettling and frightening realities in this life.

Let me share some good news with you right here, and that is that the God who has you surrounded has also provided for your salvation. Listen to what God knows. Listen to what God knew. God knew you and I would need a Savior before we were ever born. He knew that. He knew that because of your sin and your selfishness you’d be separated from Him, because He’s a holy God. Let me tell you something else that God knew. He knew that payment would need to be made for your sin, and He knew that payment would need to be made with shed blood. God knew that He would send His Son Jesus to live a sinless life and die a sacrificial death. And do you know what else? He knew that His Son would conquer death and rise to life after three days.

And God knew—God knew that for those who would repent of their sin and trust in Jesus as Savior and follow Jesus as their Lord, He knew they would be forgiven and be restored in their relationship with Him. So if the Spirit of God is convicting you of your sin and drawing you to Himself, then I want to encourage you—I want to encourage you to surrender your life today to the all-knowing God who in His love and in His grace has you surrounded. I pray today might be the day of salvation for you.

Psalm 139:1–6 reminds us that God’s knowledge has implications for my life.

Well, lastly, in our final moments, let’s look at this third essential that we need to know, and that is that God’s knowledge has implications for my life. If God really does know everything, including everything about you and about me, then that most definitely impacts how we ought to live, does it not? I know there’s a long list of things we could make here. Let me briefly mention four areas.

First of all, God’s knowledge—the fact that God knows everything about me—should fuel my worship. It should change the way that we worship. Look at what David says in verse 6. He says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” And then in verse 17, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” Instead of trying to resist or avoid God’s omniscience, David revels in it. He doesn’t just passively give assent to the idea as we often do, but David is completely overwhelmed by and amazed with the all-knowingness of God. He can’t help but respond with deep humility, with sincere praise.

English Puritan Stephen Charnock said it like this. Listen carefully.

Consider how great it is to know the thoughts and intentions and works of one man from the beginning to the end of his life. How much greater it is to foreknow and know the thoughts and works of three or four men, of a village or a whole neighborhood. It is greater still to know the imaginations and actions of such a multitude of men as are contained in London, Paris, or Constantinople. How much greater still to know the intentions and practices, the clandestine contrivances of so many millions that have, do, or shall swarm in all corners of the world, every one of them having millions of thoughts, desires, designs, affections and actions. Let this attribute then make the blessed God honorable in our eyes, and adorable in all our affections. Adore God for this wonderful perfection.

Does your personal worship regularly include acknowledgement of and sincere praise to God for the fact that He is an all-knowing God? Well, if it doesn’t yet, I hope it will.

Secondly, the knowledge of God should drive me to the Word. It should drive us to the Word. Think about the fact that the God who knows you intimately and personally also wants you to know Him. Isn’t that amazing? And He’s given us His Word so that we might know Him. So this week I want to encourage you to do something very practical. Go back to Psalm 119. Spend some time poring over that chapter and let it remind you of the value of the Word of God in your relationship to Him, and then commit yourself to consuming it more and more, and come to know the God who knows you.

Thirdly, the knowledge of God should eliminate my worry. It should eliminate my worry. We’ve probably all had those days, those days when the unexpected comes our way. Many I’m sure some have walked or are currently walking through a valley of uncertainty. Life makes a sharp left-hand turn, it was one that you didn’t see coming. If those days haven’t come yet in your life, they will someday. For some, it’s been the unexpected loss of a job recently. For others it’s been the death of a loved one that you didn’t know was around the corner. The discovery of cancer. For some it’s a financial crisis that’s at your doorstep, or a note that a husband or a wife leaves that says, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”

And when that boulder of despair comes barreling down the mountain into the road of your life, and you start asking questions like, “What are we going to do? How am I ever going to make it?” And you cry out, “This is not supposed to happen this way!” Listen closely. There is great reassurance and confidence and hope and peace that is found in the fact that God knows. God knows. Your situation hasn’t taken Him by surprise. He’s not sitting up in heaven wringing His hands, wondering what to do. He knows.

He knows right where you are, He knows exactly what you’re facing, and you have a Father who knows what you need before you even ask Him. You have a God who is a refuge and a strength and a help in a time of trouble. So carry this truth with you today, the omniscience of God is a blessing of security in the midst of your anxiety. A blessing of security in the midst of your anxiety.

Lastly, the knowledge of God should transform my walk. At the end of this psalm in verses 23 and 24, David comes back around and he says to God, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” David’s saying here, “God, know me through and through, and then let me know that You know me through and through by the way that You shepherd my life.

A God who knows all ought to change the way that we live. The reality that He knows everything, friend, ought to be a call on your life and my life to flee iniquity and pursue integrity, a call to run from our sin and chase after a Savior. Think of it like this. If I know that a police officer is sitting at the top of a hill with his radar gun pointed in my direction—in other words, I know he knows. I know he knows how fast I’m going. What do I do? I check my speed, and then I change my speed if necessary. What I don’t do is press the accelerator and wave as I go by.

Friend in Christ, the God of the universe sits atop your life with complete knowledge of you. You know He knows. So may the Spirit of God today draw your eyes to the dashboard of your life to do some evaluation, and then empower you to change wherever necessary.

• The primary theme threaded throughout Psalm 139 is the omniscience of God.

Omniscience: God’s perfect knowledge of all things

• Key Question: Does God really know everything…and if he does, how should that affect the way I live?

3 Things to Know About the Knowledge of God…

• God’s knowledge is both intuitive and immense.

(Isaiah 40:13–14; Matthew 10:30; Psalm 147:4; Proverbs 15:3; Psalm 50:11; Acts 15:18; Psalm 139:12; Psalm 90:8; Matthew 11:21)

• All knowledge past, present, and future resides in him.
• God’s knowledge is not confined to the things on this earth.
• Nothing can be hidden from him!
• God not only knows what “is” – he also knows what “could have been.”
• God’s knowledge is both intimate and infinite.
• God knows everything about me. (v. 1) 
• God knows when I move. (v. 2a)
• God knows what I think. (v. 2b)
• God knows where I go. (v. 3)
• God knows what I say. (v. 4)
• God has me surrounded. (v. 5)
• God’s knowledge has implications for my life.
• It should fuel my worship. (v. 6)
• It should drive me to the Word.
• It should eliminate my worry.
• It should transform my walk.